


[seeing]

by threadoflife



Series: sherlock ficlets [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, POV Second Person, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:59:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9368972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threadoflife/pseuds/threadoflife
Summary: You can't remember the last time someone saw you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> bit of sad typing on my phone after the fucking fiasco of tfp...

You can’t remember the last time someone saw you.

Not in the sense of seeing you physically, though, yeah, that was quite a time ago. Four days, probably, if you remember correctly. You were down at the corner shop getting some milk and new apples because you’d left the ones in your flat to go bad. (Again). It was a young man who’d seen you then, and he’d said, “Hello,” and, “that’s £5.50,” and, “thank you, sir, goodbye, sir,” and you’d left, without a word and without a smile.

The most meaningful conversation you’d had in weeks.

No, you mean the last time someone saw you; you can’t remember that. You can’t remember when it was last that someone took their time to pause, let their eyes wander over you, look past your polite smile and calm voice and see.

But that’s a lie, isn’t it.

You’re much too fond of lies, even though you hate them.

*

The first real lie you bought was when you were fourteen, and you got home just at the right moment to keep your father from possibly killing Harry.

Harry and you had been close, once. At six you slept in her bed when your parents argued at night, and at eight she still kept you pressed close with your forehead against her chest and her palms over your ears as your parents did more than argue. You bought Harry’s lie. She said, “I’m okay,” and you believed her.

But you know precisely who saw you last, and when.

He did it first.

He looked over tarmac and past police cars and crime scene tapes at you, looked right at you, and when he later said quietly, “Good shot,” you felt a thrill run through you.

That wasn’t Afghanistan. That wasn’t becoming a doctor. It was a whole new thing. It was a tall, posh genius with an addiction to danger to rival your own and a mouth too loud and too quick to be good for him, and he had killer cheekbones, and his coat twirled around him when he moved.

A whole new thing: dangerous, thrilling, mad, and madly charming. God, he was a bastard–but so charming.

He’d winked at you. And then he’d seen you.

And you said, “Because you’re an idiot,” and you grinned and him, and he grinned back at you, and you saw him, you knew him then, despite how hell-bent you were later on denying your own realisations. He did it just the same to you, though, he didn’t he?

And it had never mattered once that he didn’t want you. (Back.) (Didn’t want you back.)

If you could only just be with him that would be enough.

*

He knew you, he knew you first, and he knew this and he did it. Left you.

Left you, over a year ago now, and the highlight of your week is managing to take a shower and get some shopping done and a young man telling you the total. That’s what your life amounts to now.

If you’d known the miracle you asked for after Afghanistan would turn out to be a total disaster you’d have let it be.

But, stupid as you are, you just asked for another one.

Can’t be worse than this, anyway, right.


End file.
